FreeGameDev

Steel Rat

License:




Description:

This is a revamped time-trial map you might know before as "Capinox". Well, I release this map rather as a map based on that map per Tristam's suggestion. I basically overally changed it/fixed. No checkpoint bugs should occur. Improved lightning - more colorful (different moods in chambers), new geometries, texture and clip/noclip corrections, sounds effects, two types of water. (You will need the SVN version to test this map.) My best times are around 50 second, what's yours?

I will appreciate your feedback. And if you see some error/bug, please post it here, thank you.

List of changes and improvements:

Version 1.1
* added heliport
* assigned music track
* lightning/texture changes

Version 1.2
* texture changes
* more fixes, more sounds effects
* geometry changes
* gameplay improvement (easier to pass)
* overall visual improvement
* space skybox

Version 1.3
* accessed and designed area where the heliport is
* helicopter is now even more detailed
* added ladders
* ventilator shaft is now longer (might be changed in the future)
* texture fixes

It's a nice map. I like how the lighting underlines the spatial struckture of the textures. Also the orange glow of the leaked liquid looks nice.
I had no time, to look out for the checkpoints in the editmode in detail, but one more after the start seems to be better? The goal teleporter could have a better look, but not necessarily (a question of taste, like all too often).
Apart from that, I had no problems on the map. - And I had fun to test out the mines with new secondary mode on it .

Hey! I like the redesign a lot; for those who do not know this map started out as "Capinox" by TristamK: http://forum.freegamedev.net/viewtopic.php?f=73&t=3331

I must say he has done a very good job and it is still an enjoyable challenge in timetrial mode.

Version 1.1
* assigned music
* added background (heliport)
* small texture changes

Ok, hi, this is a version 1.2 with much more changes and stuff. (Pics and files are updated in the first post.)

Version 1.2
* texture changes
* more fixes, more sound effects
* geometry changes
* gameplay improvement (easier to pass)
* overall visual improvement
* space skybox

I always liked this time trial map and the new version is another step in the right direction. The new textures look really nice, I like the details to small geometry and access panels on the sides of the walls, particles and sound effects. Hopefully this can make it into SVN because I find that we still have very little good time trial maps.

A few small things:
- Here and there I noticed some textures where the offset was off (like the scrolling metal texture in the first part of the map)
- and sides near pushed-in cubes where the wrong textures were used (right in the beginning where you pass the big door).

Thank you for feedback. I didn't mention yet, this version is already in the SVN Repository, so you can test it out there, althought it is not yet in the rotation.

About those remaining minor corrections, this is planned (to do) for next version. That scrolling texture could be adjusted even more to be exact fitting, I know. In more careful look it is visible indeed.

And about the texture on sides, you mean the (a bit) darker part of it? I think that is because of the geometry, so it deformed a little the texture, but I will try to fix it.

But over those minor things, there is much worse error in my opinion, and it is disappearing grids models (right in the start room it is very visible, or more precisely - invisible). This bug was reported under the ticket #377, but closed as invalid (and was explained afterwards to me, that I can't fix it, and escalated into nonsense rage against me..), though it worked okay before for me, which I showed on the attachment of the ticket. Well.. Make an opinion yourself about it.. I'm already tired to comment it any more.

See screenshot below:

Just one small thing:
The obitmessage says "X has failed on their resque mission". "resque" is misspelled, this should be "rescue". That's really all I have to say about the map. It's quite nice, although a lot harder than most time-trial maps in the game.

Aaaah, thanks! I usually misspell this word. :) Probably due to my french classes I took.

I tested the map in svn, and well, i really like the texturing and things like that.
With /bloom 0.2 activated, it looks very beautiful
The only problem is the place i point out in the screenshot, maybe make that a little more rounded?

Well, it's not supposed that someone will try so hard to pass it when there is a grid. :) But you're right, it happened me also two times or so with this geometry shape, if you jump on it in the exact point. But I didn't pay attention to it much because it looked really hard to perform and I chose this shape and then I forgot to fix it. Similar issue I had also on map fourplex, where you could get through the inclided geometry, if you jump in the right position. It is solved by clipping, which works well, so you don't need to change shape of the geometry. Otherwise, scrolling texture offset is fixed now, as well as misspelled word in the message and remaining details should be fixed too. Also ventilator shaft was changed and few other things were tweaked to make this map easier passable.

Thank you for testing, I'm going to fix also that issue and then update it again.

This is where I meant that some wrong textures are used where cubes are pushed in. It is hardly notable though...

Well, if you mean the texture where you have a cursor, that is intentional to make an impresion of inconspicuous grip for the cover. But this texture doesn't match to the other texture on side of it, yes. I will change it in next update.

Hi Damien,
(Please consider in the future losslessly compressing your pngs, in this case saving 1mb.) I get this anomaly when I try to use the team models 0 ... 3 for signs on the floor in Quaternion. The models disappear at moderate distances. It does not seem to mater what I do with mdlalphatest 0 ... 1; I cannot get the models to stay visible in this scenario.
Cheers

Dratz-_C, you should also try pngcrush (or PNGOUT by Ken Silverman if you're on Windows). It's what we use on Wikimedia Commons for popular images to reduce bandwidth. If you applied it to every texture in the game you could reduce size significantly.

I personally leave the job to other Wikipedians as I don't care enough for computer graphics to understand how this program works, but someone like Lee Salzman could probably work it out.

Just my $0.02.

EDIT: Oh wait, that is a program for lossless compression, how could I miss the first few words, hahaha. Sorry about that.

Dratz-_C {l Wrote}:Hi Damien,

model-anomaly.png

(Please consider in the future losslessly compressing your pngs, in this case saving 1mb.) I get this anomaly when I try to use the team models 0 ... 3 for signs on the floor in Quaternion. The models disappear at moderate distances. It does not seem to mater what I do with mdlalphatest 0 ... 1; I cannot get the models to stay visible in this scenario.
Cheers

Thank you Dratz for testing. About the preview, I know, I forgot descrease the size to 256 px. It was 640 px, as it is originally when I take the preview picture. [EDIT: Ah, you mean also common screenshots I put here I guess? I will do that if there is some problem with loading. Umm.. Next time.. since I already uploaded them]

Yup, the models disappear in way too close distance in my view. But it is not only on this map as you confirm, it is generally like that now in the subversion, which makes every mapmodel without some depth disappearing. Well, what else to say..

This is another update. Dratz will surely appreciate the ladders (and others too I hope). ;)

Version 1.3
* accessed and designed area where the heliport is
* helicopter is now even more detailed
* added ladders
* ventilator shaft is now longer (might be changed in the future)
* texture fixes
* filesize descreased

Hope you like the changes. And few screenshots here:

Dratz, and others who has that issue with grid mapmodels. I have been testing a bit and found out a solution how to fix it partially. It is very tricky. The way to fix this at least partially, is via "Anisotropic filtering". It is still disappearing at some distance, but helps quite a lot if you use "16x". Anyway, with default setting it very hard visible from angle or from middle-close distance, so then could help only giving a depth to the mapmodel, or fixing it somehow in the engine, I suppose. I'm not expert on that though.

In the log of changes for 1.4 qreeves {l Wrote}:* Steel Rat, new time-trial map (added from mapversion 1.3b)

Congratulations for having this one included in the Elara edition. I first did not realize about that at all, as steelrat is not in the $trialmaps per default. The map offers some of the most polished environments and some very nice improvements to Capinox.

Whoops, my mistake.